Does the introduction of electric cars to Australia mean the end of the Australian manufacturing industry?
Alan Kohler … the well-known economics commentator seems to think so. He sees Australia’s manufacturing industry as being underpinned by the local car makers and currently none of them are interested in building anything like an electric car in Australia.
While Australia has lagged behind the United States and Europe when it comes to electric propulsion for our vehicles Kohler suggests that may soon change and electric cars will become far more popular faster than many industry analysts may think.
And when that starts to occur what happens to our car industry?
Let’s face it, GM, Ford and Toyota have no real loyalty to this country … or any other for that matter … so we can’t expect them to stay here just because we like to buy they’re products. They know that we’ll buy their products whether they’re made at Fisherman’s Bend or somewhere overseas and we’re already doing that.
So as soon as it makes more economic sense to close their plants here in Australia than it does to keep them open they will. They can basically make their cars anywhere and the plants that are opening up in Asia and India can produce more than enough volume to keep our market and many others supplied.
So with all the major car makers already gearing up to produce electric cars in plants overseas our car making industry will wither and die and as it fades away so too will the rest of our manufacturing industry.
If Allan Kohler is right then the next five years could be very interesting for our local car industry and for our manufacturing industry in general.
You can read more of what Allan Kohler had to say here.